Breaking News
by shadowsofthealmighty
Summary: Before the Rapture Civil War, there was really only one person you could trust for news, and you really wished it wasn't him. A study into an insignificant character
1. Chapter 1

Breaking News

Chapter One: Eyes in the Sky

Note: I do not own _Bioshock_ nor any related copyrights such as Rapture, ADAM, EVE, The Rapture Tribune, and other such related concepts and names.

9:48 PM September 12, 1958

Mercury Suites

The silence of the apartments was astounding. The lights had been dimmed to reflect night in the underwater city of Rapture. Many of the inhabitants of the utopia slept peacefully in their beds. Under the city, workers walked the night shift, making sure the city ran properly. A welder walked through a maintenance tunnel and felt s soft drop on his head. He stopped for a moment and plodded on. A Big Daddy and Little Sister walked the empty streets. Otherwise, the town was quiet.

An elevator started to descend, its soft hum breaking the quiet night. Eventually it reached the floor of the suites and the doors opened. A lone trenchcoat-wearing individual stepped out of the elevator.

The bald man silently scanned the area around him before sliding a key into a box next to his door. Opening the box, he began to mess with the tumblers until he felt satisfied that they were changed sufficiently. Not bothering to memorize the new layout, he closed the box and locked it. Then, turning around, he strolled out towards the bathysphere station.

"Well..well…" A quiet figure whispered to himself from the second floor.

The figure was a sly man, the kind of man that you wouldn't normally associate with. His balding hair and thick glasses gave people the impression that they were looking at a weasel. His face was unshaven, his suit was untidy, and his overall appearance was unsanitary, but he still held a spark of cunning intelligence behind his eyes. Thus was the nature of Billy Pierce, the star reporter of the Rapture Tribune.

Billy Pierce had the habit of being in places that other reporters would kill to be. He was snooping around the home of Andrew Ryan and discovered Rapture. He ran into Ryan after a trial he covered topside and asked to go the underwater utopia to which Ryan agreed. He was the first person to interview Ryan intimately, he was the first person to welcome Sophia Lamb to Rapture, and he was there when the first Big Daddy killed someone for getting too close to a Little Sister. He covered them all with acute detail slanted by his own unique writing style.

Billy Pierce leaned back from the camera held up on the tripod and snickered to himself. Pulling his recorder to him, he recorded:

"_Looks like things have gone busto between Fontaine and his little German beanpole. Why a guy like Fontaine would waste his time with that spooky Kraut when he could be gettin' the gravy from any dish he chooses is beyond the understanding of this paparazzi. Even reset the door code to 5744, maybe to be double-sure that beanpole don't sprout up in his yard again..._"

Chuckling, he placed the audio diary down on the crate next to him. Despite being called a paparazzi (at his insistence), he did not just take celebrity gossip and print it on the front page. He was the man that took pictures and wrote the captions that went with it. He was the man who made rumors, not print them. His journalistic gaze covered everything from the working class hardships to the glories of the rich and famous. He covered it all and fed it into the ears of Rapture.

He leaned back and closed his eyes, wondering how he was going to spin this story to his liking. It was only a momentary opening of his eyes that warned him of the pipe being brought down on his face.

_Well shit_ he thought.

_Author's Note: This is really an experiment in how I can flesh out the most insignificant characters and put them in a story. Still, I hope to take this far._


	2. Chapter 2

Breaking News

Chapter Two: In Harm's Way

Note: I do not own _Bioshock_ nor any related copyrights such as Rapture, ADAM, EVE, The Rapture Tribune, and other such related concepts and names.

Billy fell backwards, barely avoiding the lead pipe that was swung by the crazed splicer. He crashed to the floor and scrambled backwards as the splicer regained his composer. Just recently, people had started to find out the downside of ADAM splicing. Personally, Billy never dealt with splicing, preferring to advance himself the natural way. Still, with a crazed man hyped up on ADAM out to kill him, he started to wish he had some Sportsboost.

Billy stood and held out his hands, "Okay, listen: I've got no ADAM on me. I'm just a reporter and…SHIT!" Billy yelled, ducking under the pipe.

The splicer swung again, but this time was more fortunate in his endeavor. Billy fell backwards, clutching his arm. _Is it broken? Just bruised? Dammit, can't die here…_ With a surge of strength, Billy leapt up yelling, his fist directed at the splicer's face…

…and soon found his arm twisted around his back as the pipe was brought up again. Billy's eyes darted around his setup on the railing, finally resting on an unopened thermos of coffee. Taking his free arm, he grabbed the thermos and swung it at the splicer. The splicer staggered backwards, releasing his hold on Billy's arm.

As Billy fell backwards again, he landed on his shoulder, sending white-hot pain shooting up his arm. He clenched his teeth and reached around for his Quickflash.

Besides being a reporter, Billy, like most other citizens of Rapture, dabbled with inventing. Using a U-Invent near his work and a workbench at his home, he managed to create what he called the Quickflash. It was a quarter the size of a conventional camera, fitting in the palm of his hand. The device held a lot less film, but it was a lot more convenient than the bulky cameras that other reporters used and still had the same picture quality. The only downside was that he hadn't perfected the flash mixture for the camera so that it temporarily blinded anyone whose picture was taken.

_Good time for a field test_ Billy thought, holding the device to his eyes. "Hey buddy!" He called out in a singsong manner at the splicer who had raised his pipe yet again. "Smile!" He pressed the button and the splicer was blinded by the incredible flash of light. While he rubbed his eyes, Billy picked up the splicer's pipe and slammed it into its head. The next moment, the splicer was on the ground, the discarded thermos and chair lying next to him.

As the photograph fluttered out of the Quickflash, Billy caught it and looked at it. His assailant was immortalized in the sepia tones of the photograph. _Can't have that_ Billy thought, tearing the photograph in half.

"Hey Joey, you here?" A voice rang out from around the corner. Billy looked up and saw the shadow of a housewife approaching from around the corner. Taking stock of his situation, incorporating the high likelihood of her being a splicer as well, Billy turned around and fled to the stairs, leaving his entire setup left behind.

…

The offices of the Rapture Tribune were based out of the basement of Athena's Glory, the home of the uppermost crust of Rapture, holding the dwellings of Gil Alexander, Sophia Lamb (before she was in prison), and the man himself, Andrew Ryan. Compared to the lavish decorations of the upper levels, the Tribune was a mess. Typewriters were on every paper-cluttered table, proofs of the Tribune were everywhere, even tacked up on the ceiling, and pep bar wrappers covered the floor. Despite the mess, only two people were in the offices this late.

A third, Billy Pierce, walked through the door, his arm in a bandaged wrapped by a healing station. He looked over at the nearest man, a bald, wrinkled, short man that gave one the feeling of looking at a toad. The man looked over at Billy as he walked in. "Billy!" He croaked, "You're getting in late."

"Well, ran into some splicer trouble down at Mercury Suites; this is the first time they've started attacking normal people rather than Sullivan's security force. After I publish my Fontaine story…"

"To hell with your Fontaine story, I need you down at Futuristics in the morning."

"Fonatine Futuristics? Look, I wasn't going to interview him until…"

The toadish man chuckled and said, "You seemed to have missed this story Billy." He held up a copy of the Standard which had just been delivered by an inside man not too long ago. Billy seized the article and looked at it. Second later, he dropped it to the ground.

_Well shit_ he thought, looking at the headline.

_"Ryan takes down smuggling operation ... Fontaine and thugs killed in fiery shootout!"_

_ Next Chapter: Beginning of the End_

_ P.S. – I'm still working on Atlantis Risen, this is just to tide you guys over._


End file.
